This invention relates to a new form of book construction.
A book is in effect a substantial number of printed pages bound together in bulk. The name comes from the old Saxon root boc, a beech, whose derivatives exist in various northern tongues; it recalls an early type of northern book in which slabs of oak, beech, or fir were the covers. But the primitive book can be traced much farther back in the East, where Chaldean inscribed tiles exist 7000 years old and more, whose cuneiform letters were made on soft clay by scribes; the tile was then baked in a kiln. Another ancient type of book was the Egyptian papyrus roll, made from the pith of the reed from which comes the word paper, and put in a roller like a map. It was a perishable material, and few examples have survived. For over ten centuries, papyrus rolls or volumes were in use; and many copies of the same work were often made by a number of scribes who wrote down simultaneously the text dictated by an author or a reader. The papyrus rolls were kept in jars and canisters, or collected in boxes, which served to preserve them from destruction.
As the Chaldean tablet provides the crude idea of a book, varying as books do in size, so the papyrus provides the first idea of the paper page. But the papyrus was unfitted by its brittle texture to be folded, and the next development came when the papyrus sheet gave way to parchment and vellum skins, and the pen was used instead of the style. Books were produced on folded parchment in the eraly medieval religious houses, for long the only publishers. The page became a distinct item with a manuscript symmetry of its own, and the folding of the parchment or vellum into fourfold or other convenient sizes of leaf helped to decide the traditional format and make-up of the ordinary book.
The earliest date to be given for the use of parchment overlaps by centuries the period of the papyrus roll, but it was not freely used until about 500 A.D. Among books that count by their long survival and historical value, the Egyptian Papyrus Prisse and the Book of the Dead may be cited; the former is between 3000 and 4000 years old. Chinese books of proverbial antiquity are to be traced well over 2000 years. They are frequently furnished with leaves of jade inscribed with exquisitely clear script. But in China the book met with a tragic break of history in the 2nd century B.C. when the Burning of the Books in 221 by the first emperor destroyed the labors of 1000 years or more.
As the book developed in Europe, and assumed its conventional lines, it still kept many of the terms given it by its original beginners. It remained a volume because the old parchment roll was wound on a stick, and it retained its leaves, its paper, and its boards. When paper was first made, the writing kept its old character; but the art of the Celtic and Latin scribes was preferred to the German script when the earliest font of Latin type was cut. This resulted in the modern style of printing.
Although the origin of bookbinding is uncertain, the art is one of great antiquity. English bindings have come down from the 10th century, and many examples from the 11th and 12th. Originally all manuscript was rolled. Bookbinding proper began when the sheets were first folded to form leaves of uniform size, sewed together, and fastened between covers.
In the earliest examples still preserved, the covers were made of wood, usually covered with leather ornamented with various designs. The work, like that of manuscript, was entirely in the hands of the various religious orders, who lavished great care upon it. In the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, books were frequently bound in ivory or gem-studded metal.
Books, as a rule, are supplied by the printer to the binder in sheet sections made up of 64 to 128 pages. The printed pages are arranged so that they will lie in their proper order when folded. On the saddle of each outside sheet section is printed a collating mark. The sheets, as folded in 16- or 32-page foldings, are called signatures. The first and last signatures of a book go through tipping and stripping machines, where they are pasted along the inside to the linings, or end sheets, and are reinforced with cambric, drill, etc., to give them strength, and the book is then finally bound between covers.
Books having inserts or "pop ups" which literally pop up out of the book when opened, as well as greeting cards having similar pop ups are known. And, finally, books in the classic Chinese style having no spine and having accordian-like folded pages are also known, the latter being the closest known prior art.